Montpelier lawyer seeks Senate seat

Washington County residents have become disillusioned with the state Legislature, said Montpelier resident Ashley Hill, and she wants to fix that.

Hill, 31, a deputy state’s attorney for Addison County, announced last week she’ll be a Democratic candidate next year for a state Senate seat from Washington County. The county has three seats in the Senate.

Two current senators, Anthony Pollina, P/D-Middlesex, and Ann Cummings, D-Montpelier, said they expect to run for re-election, though both noted it’s pretty early to start a campaign for the Legislature.

The third senator, Bill Doyle, R-Montpelier, could not be reached immediately for comment.

Hill said her campaign “is constituent-focused — I really want to hear from them.”

The criminal justice system is high on the list of issues on which she wants to focus.

“We haven’t historically been investing in the people of Vermont,” Hill said. “We’ve been investing in other things,” such as incarceration.

State officials announced Nov. 16 that fewer people are in prison than any year since the early 2000s. In a column, Gov. Peter Shumlin said it costs about $62,000 a year to house one inmate in a state prison, and with 1,734 people locked up, the cost is about $107.5 million just this year. The number of inmates is down from 2,111 a year ago.

However, that total doesn’t count the 8,405 people in other parts of the corrections system — probation, parole, house arrest, preparing for release, and intermediate sanctions somewhere between probation and incarceration.

In 2014, of the 2,760 people entering the correction system for the first time, 703 were age 20 to 25, 507 were age 25 to 30, 362 were 30 to 35, and 215 were 35 to 40. Other age groups had smaller totals.

“Vermont spends more on criminal justice than higher education,” Hill said, and that’s something she’d like to change.

Though she’s never been a legislator, Hill has other experience that she hopes will lead to votes.

She earned a law degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston in 2012 and moved from her home on the New Hampshire coast to Montpelier.

She works as a prosecutor for the Addison County State’s Attorney office in Middlebury.

Hill is vice chair of the Washington County Democrats and sits on the board of Emerge Vermont, an organization that encourages and trains women in the state to run for higher office. She is also a member of the League of Women Voters.

As it gets closer to election time, Hill said she will conduct a “State of the County” survey, seeking the opinions of her potential constituents.

“I look forward to hearing from my neighbors in Washington County about what issues matter to them most right now,” Hill said.